five things you know
by ninejs
Summary: And one thing you don't. —max/chloe


**moved 5/6/17. originally written 11/27/15.**

 **inspired by the poem of the same name. just google it, you'll find it on tumblr or something. i changed the pronouns. the poem is put into the roman numeral sections. it's not mine, obviously. i have no clue who originally wrote it, but it is beautiful.**

 **i wrote this when i was really, really sick. i spent the whole day of thanksgiving trying to sleep off this really awful sore throat. i woke up around 4 or 5 am the day after thanksgiving and wrote this.**

* * *

 _i._

 _first. she touches you and you light on fire. your wrist blazes where her fingers meet your skin. the burns don't show, but it's hard to breathe with ash in your lungs. it's so hard to breathe. you're suffocating daily._

* * *

"Don't fall," she says, and you want to laugh. At this point, her advice seems so idiotic. But you are thinking in metaphors and she is speaking literally, so you guess you should listen to her.

Because if there's one thing you've learned after all of this, it's that you know you should always listen to Max Caulfield.

When Max touches you, her hand slipping into yours, you grow warm. Your whole body is on fire. Your lungs start to feel like you're inhaling cigarette smoke, but you're not exhaling. It's sitting in there like dead weight.

Max doesn't seem to notice. She's too preoccupied with keeping her balance on the train tracks, just like you should be doing. Yet here you are, wondering why being around Max makes it so hard to breathe.

Max lets go.

Your hand is still on fire. And you still can't breathe.

* * *

 _ii._

 _second. it hurts to watch her. she shines. she's brighter than the sun, she's too beautiful for your eyes. it's hard to look at her. it's even harder to look away from her. you're going blind._

* * *

Max Caulfield might just as well be the fucking sun. You have never seen such a brilliant person that it almost feels unfair to have her here on Earth with you.

If you had been there with her, watching as she pulled Kate down from her perch on that roof with just her words, you know you wouldn't have been able to see over the glow of Maxine Caulfield's fucking halo.

You have known it was there from the beginning, from the days when you two were snivelling idiots, coloring and blowing up the kitchen in a vain attempt to make pancakes. The night of your dad's death, she just laid next to you silently in your bed, staring at you, holding you close as you went through too many emotions to count. She didn't judge you for a lack of tears, or for too many when things had finally hit you. She just comforted you.

But, even before that night, you knew that Max shined like twinkling stars.

Fuck that. She shined brighter than those stars, than the fucking sun. Comparing Max to those things seems trivial and stupid and borderline offensive. Because she deserves better. The best. She always has.

You haven't stopped being blinded by Max's gorgeous light since the day you met her. And you don't mind one bit, because looking away from her should be some kind of punishable offense.

* * *

 _iii._

 _third. your ears are tuned to her voice. you could pick her out in a sea of thousands. her voice makes pretty singers who sing pretty songs sound dull. her voice makes everything else sound ugly._

* * *

When she laughs, you swear you could be flying. Even her speaking is enough to send you into outer fucking space. It seems a tad stupid, really, to be so attached to her voice like you are, but you know better than to believe those nagging thoughts. Because Max has used words to save people.

She saved Kate by just talking to her.

And, to be fair, when Max spoke to you, after all your years of being apart, it felt like something had gone horribly right in a world that continuously does things to you that are oh so horribly wrong. There's no way the universe would give you Max back, after everything and every _one_ it's taken from you.

But it did.

And you've never been more thankful for anything in your entire life, so being attached to her voice? No, it's not silly or stupid or anything negative. Not to you.

Her voice is serene, peaceful, and it has an endearing quality to it. Max falters over words because of how shy she is, and it's so _cute_ to hear her sound that way, but you like it more when she's with you and she's sarcastic and happy and so full of _life_.

That's the Max you know. That's the Max you wouldn't trade away for anything.

(No, not even Rachel.)

* * *

 _iv._

 _fourth. the color of her eyes is blue enough to drown in. she is turning you into a clichéd love-wrecked being. you're drowning, always sinking. down, down, down._

* * *

Max's eyes are bluer than the fucking ocean. You wonder how there could be people out there that would even _try_ to disagree with that statement.

Looking into her eyes honestly feels no different than diving into the pool the night you broke into Blackwell Academy. You could dive into them. You could swim in them. And you could drown in them.

You _are_ drowning in them. The morning after, when you stare at her, daring her to kiss you, you keep trying to look away from the water stuck permanently onto her face, away from the glowing halo that shines above her... But you can't. You are bound to her, and so you will stare at her even when you have gone too blind to see anything, and you will keep drowning in her eyes until you have run out of air.

When she does kiss you, though, you feel like those two extremes have come faster than you thought they would.

* * *

 _v._

 _fifth. you know her. you love her. through a thousand lifetimes, across millions of stars, you'd find her, you'd never leave her. you love her, till death do you part._

* * *

You are head over heels in love with one Maxine Caulfield. And you have no shame in admitting it. ...At least, to yourself.

Because to tell her, when you have doubts about her feeling the same way, seems like jumping the gun. There is always something. Just when you're sure Max feels the same, the panic sets in that she doesn't and the world will start attacking you and punishing you all over again.

You will lose her. And you couldn't handle that. That would be the ultimate form of condemnation.

But, somewhere deep down, you know that even if, god forbid, you lost her, in unrequited feelings or in any way, really, you'd just go out and find her. Max is precious to you. She's the diamond in a coal mine that people search thousands of years for.

Those people would eventually give up. But you wouldn't. If it took you a billion light years, you would search for. You would _never ever_ give up on searching for her. Even if you were dead, you would keep searching everywhere for her.

And you would _never ever_ leave her. When you told her that, you meant it. The universe cannot take you away from her.

Because you love her so much that it scares the shit out of you.

You love her, you love her, _you love her_ -

* * *

( _vi._

 _sixth. she loves you, too._

The photograph has been ripped in half. She is staring at you with her endless blue ocean eyes, and you are almost rendered speechless.

Because Max wouldn't trade you, even for the life of people she knew, people she was friends with -

Max loves you just as much as you love her. She is just as scared.

You're both fucking hopeless.

But at least you have each other.)


End file.
